“So we fasted and entreated our God for this, and He answered our prayer” (Ezra 8:23). What was the issue?
Exposed to “the enemy” on the long journey from Babylon to Jerusalem, they humbled themselves before God “to seek from Him the right way for us and our little ones and all our possessions” (vv 21-22). But Ezra was not prepared to ask the king for an escort. Why? He had already boasted to the king that the hand of God was for them and against their enemies. The honor of God was at stake!
A.C. Dixon, in his book Evangelism, A Biblical Approach (p 108), writes: “When we rely upon organization, we get what organization can do; when we rely upon education, we get what education can do; when we rely upon eloquence, we get what eloquence can do, and so on. Nor am I disposed to undervalue any of these things in their proper place, but when we rely upon prayer, we get what God can do.”
That’s what we need today, brothers and sisters—we need what only God can do.